Hoi An, Viet Nam | The Town of Nostalgia - Day 1

Hello everyone! How was your Lunar New Year holiday going? Lacking of posts recently so I shall wish you the best of luck, health and happiness this Year of Monkey at the beginning of this post haha.

To start a great year, I made a trip to the Middle part of Vietnam. And Hoi An, a place that blew my mind away. As a habit, you will know if I like certain city or not depending on whether I'd want to live there or not. So far in the list, Hoi An has taken the second place (the first belongs to Vienna).


Hoi An is a special town, at least it is to me. It brought a combination of peaceful, loving and wonderful sensations when I walked down its little streets. For the first half hour, I couldn't believe my eyes, everything was so breathtaking to me. Before stepping my feet to this town, Hoi An was very, what's the right word, 'opaque' in my mind. I knew it exists but the thought of travelling to this city was never a goal I think I should accomplish, such a pity right? But then again, because I completely underestimated it so much, it blew my freaking mind haha.

Transportation 

We arrived at Hoi An in the afternoon, after 40 minutes riding the scooter from Da Nang City following the coastal street that was called 4 names depending on which part was belonged to which communes (☉_☉). It was a pretty long trip since we always wondered when the hell we were gonna reach Hoi An and surprisingly the distance was only 30-ish km.

Initially, we were gonna take the bus there, but riding the scooter was more convenient and at no cost (except for gas) cos our friend lent it to us (thank you thank you). You can rent one of your own but for me it was too expensive for a day really, 150.000VND/day without gas (about US$6.5). 

There were other options, by bus or taxi. 

• If you'd like to take the bus, which is low cost, comfortable, economical and safe, then you can go to Danang Central Bus Station, located at 159 Tôn Đức Thắng Street, Da Nang. The price ticket is about 20.000VND (less than US$1), and takes about 1 hour to Hoi An. But you gotta take in account the cost travelling from your hotel to the bus station.

• If you'd want a faster, convenient (reaching the front door of your hotel/homestay), taxi is also an option. I'd recommend this if you travel with another 3 people, you can share the cost and of course the benefits it comes with. But only taking Tien Sa Taxi, the yellow cab or Mai Linh Taxi, the green cab for your best interests, other taxis could be good but you don't know if they had done funny things with the money metrics and made the price ridiculous. The cost is 300.000~400.000VND.   

*I have researched more about the option where you can rent a car to Hoi An from Da Nang with a fixed price but it varies a lot, from 220.000VND to 300.000VND but I don't know if anyone who speaks English can communicate with the drivers. I'll update the info soon so stay tuned!

Accomodation

We stayed at Hoa Phong Lan Homestay (Orchid Homestay). This place is superb, perfect for the price. You should contact them directly to get a cheaper price, we booked a room for 2 for 550.000VND a night, Booking.com's price was 716.000VND (which was US$32). They speak English so don't hesitate! The location was really close to the central Hoi An, like 5 minutes walk through a very busy market. It'd be an interesting experience passing the market trust me haha

My lovely Hoi An

One of the reason I like Hoi An because I was lucky to be walking on its streets with no cost at all. During the time we were there, the tourists were able to enter the central area without paying 80.000VND/Vietnamese and 120.000VND/foreigners (the ticket should be kept for the next entry during your stay, like multiple entries).  

The best way, ok not the best, but an alternative way to go around Hoi An is by bicycle. Luckily, our accommodation provided one free bike for each room, we also took one for free cos the guests were not using them (really nice hospitality eh?). But if you have to rent, the receptionist told me the rent would cost 20.000VND/day (like less than US$1). But I have to confess that sometimes the bikes are the burdens, the darker it gets, the more crowded the streets are. You just can't stay on the bike's seat for 2 seconds because there will be people standing in your way. I wanted to dump it somewhere and walk around. Gosh!

But, fortunately, you can leave the bike anywhere you fancy, lock the bike and you're free to go. But as an authentic Saigonese, I was worried sick thinking the bikes would get stolen and therefore kept whining to my friend we should take the bikes back to the homestay (I'm so annoying). But nothing happened so I confirm you can leave it anywhere, just remember to lock it!

Colors of Hoi An

We walked for a while and decided to rest a bit, I wanted to go to a special place, Reaching Out Teashouse but the place was all packed so we chose Hoi An Roastery instead.

- 135 Tran Phu, Hoi An Old Quarter -

I ordered egg coffee. That's right, they put egg yolk in the coffee, a special Vietnamese coffee that I've never tried so I did. It was really sweet but somewhat quite ok to drink.

My friend was like "urghh too sweet" haha, more coffee for me then. The place overall was very nice and cozy, but for me it was a little bit too pricey. Probably because I don't really associate Hoi An as a an expensive destination but in reality, I was surprised how much I spent for it alone. 

The street food is told to be one of the highlight  of Hoi An so we decided to try some Vietnamese sweet desert. 10.000VND for each like that small bowl she was holding in her hands. 

Hoi An is famous for its tailor boutique, you can get the style you wish done in the next day for the price of around 350.00VND to more than 800.000VND. But for that much of money, I have my own source back in Saigon so I was looking for another alternative. A small shop that once I read about that sells jumpsuit, dresses, pants for less than 100.000VND. I was told to find it near the Market, with no other information, it seemed really hopeless at one point. But then at when I was about to give up, I found it.

The street where I found the shop

Here it is
- 15/1 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Hoi An Old Quarter -

To be fair, with that price range, the clothing was ok to wear, not like superb looking as those boutique I told you about. But you can buy more pieces with the same money spent for one tailored dress or jumpsuit. And you can find many styles in here as well, took a picture so you don't have struggles finding it like me (good friend eh? haha kidding). So next time, go find that shop with a fish name to buy more clothes if you happen to run out of it.

At dawn, hungry because of extreme excitement (the thing I found above haha) so we went for food. At first we consulted with TripAdvisor and planned to go to one of those super expensive restaurants in the very central, next to the main river to observe people putting their lanterns float on the river's surface. But the food was priced like a fine dining restaurants, even more expensive than Saigon, the taste could be good but so overpriced.

We settled for the famous and reasonably priced traditional dish of Hoi An, chicken rice. The most popular one is Bà Buội's, but at 6pm, uhm ish? There was no more left to serve. Quite disappointing, we left. Yet there was this smaller cart opposite to Bà Buội's restaurant. 

Our order 

The whole thing costed 110.000VND, we was short in change so we gave the owner 500.000VND bill. But he was like just give him 100.000VND, the other 10.000 was his lucky money gifting for us since it was Lunar New Year. We was like AWW! Definitely coming back to this cute cute restaurant again! 

- 27 Phan Chau Trinh, Hoi An - 

The name of the chicken rice restaurant. Sorry bit blurry, my cam doesn't work well in the dark :(

There was more seats walking deeper into the ally. Oh! Did I mention the iced tea was free also? 
After the feast, we walked back to the central, I managed to took some pictures of the Japanese Bridge but didn't turn out well. At least I tried.

We then slowly walked further down along the river side, discovering many many awesome street food. But since my friend was so cautious about the food hygiene, I didn't get to eat any TT___TT. Definitely coming back to try those food myself. After swallowing my throat for a few times, we turned back to walk on the Japanese Bridge. But it was too crowded, I just wanted to pass it asap, apparently there is a small temple in it.

On our way back to the homestay

We managed to visit Hoi An's distinctive chandelier shop. They were extremely visible on the street, you would run into it definitely. The price is from 100.000VND, depending on the size, you can bargain if you want but if the price is ok for you, just buy, they put a lot of hard work making the chandelier. I think it's important to put a hand preserving these cultural products. They were really lovely and would be a nice gift for your loved ones.

We didn't really want to discover more of the ancient city, partly because we were exhausted spending 6 hours walking around, partly because it was so crowded, my friend and I as introverts, like places with less or preferably no people at all haha. So we went home and rest.

Hoi An at night is extremely busy, it can't seem to have an end to the night. There was one thing we regretted not doing, going on one of the boats and make a wish with our own lanterns, let them float along the river. So if you can bargain a good price with the lantern seller, then please do it, I think it'd be a worthy experience.

Nite Nite Hoi An!
Continue with Hoi An Day 2 here!